Matt’s Journal

I am quite heavily engaged in this social media hype machine, I profess to use a multitude of services that people will probably tell you you don’t need to use. Examples of these services are in my sidebar, which hosts a list of all the Web2.0 type sites I belong to.

The truth is though, the sites I do use are extraordinarily useful. Twitter and Plurk allow me to keep in contact with people across the world but also with my wife, who uses Twitter from her IM client on her laptop. I am kept upto date with the latest news by using sites such as Mixx, Digg and Delicious.

What I am trying to point out here is that social media has brought the internet forward decades from what it used to be. Gone are the days where you used the internet for just research and Napster, you are now able to update your webpage from your iPhone, interact with people who you have never met and build professional relationships that you previously wouldn’t have had any chance of initialising.

The main reason I have embedded the sites I use on my sidebar is so that you can interact and join similar networks should you wish to. I have an iPhone, on which 90% of the applications are communication tools, namely Facebook, Twitter and Plurk.

Wanting to boost my activity and share my knowledge and ideas of the internet, I put forward the writing on this blog as my application to one of the most popular technology websites; Makeuseof.com. Within a couple of days I was contacted by the chief editor saying I was successful in my application, I was to be added to their team of writers.

Fast forward two weeks, I have just completed my second article for them and I have many others waiting in the wings. It’s proving to be a very good way to slowly but surely move away from your typical 9-5 workday and move towards a career that would involve me working for myself.

I have a number of projects simmering at the moment that are only days maybe weeks from launch. I am hoping that I can get a second revenue stream coming in, meaning I can apply for bigger and better positions in the future.

Wish me luck.

Everybody remembers the last time they experienced some truly awesome customer service, whether it be in your local supermarket, dining in a restaurant or when a popular website rolls out one of your suggestions.

The latter is what Mixx did.

Mixx has a fantastic reputation for delivering on user requests as I have posted before but let me show you how a request I put to the Mixx team was rolled out in a matter of days.

The Story (sit down children).

I had requested that Mixx place a “Google” category in the Tech section of their website (as shown below) via Twitter. I didn’t receive a response right away but assumed it would be added to the list of site improvements.

Fast forward four days and I receive a Twitter message notification in my email telling me a Google category has been added.

I log in and low and behold, the section is there in all it’s glory!

It really shows that when users come up with a good idea, the Mixx team will do whatever it takes to get the feature implemented. With all the problems at Digg, I really can’t see people putting up with inadequacy there for too long before they end up coming to the “Red Side” where there is a proper community.

You can view the new category here.

I have been using the service for a little while now and I have been finding it more and more useful. As kids (I can’t really talk, I’m only 24) are texting quicker and quicker with their mobile phones, the geeks among us have taken this long established medium and turned it into an internet application, texting friends you have never met. Who knew that keeping the world and his dog updated on what you had for dinner, where you are flying to and your opinion on OpenID could be so fun?

One thing I have found is how useful it is to send “Tweets” to Social Media websites. I have sent questions and points to Mixx on their Twitter page and had responses in under an hour, something an email to technical support would result in an extra day of waiting for a response.

I messaged Disgby, notifying them that they didn’t advertise anywhere on their site that they supported Twitter in their application. A few minutes later:

It can be tedious documenting things on there, that’s a given. However, now there are so many ways to add Tweets to Twitter like FriendFeed, Digsby, Thwirl and of course via the web and txt message, you can stay updated and hear news faster than your usual channels of communication.

I’ll get bored and get rid of it soon no doubt but for now it’s all a bit of good harmless fun.

Stumbleupon was one of the first social sites that I used, it’s been around so long, most people couldn’t have told you it was classed as a social site until the Web2.0/Myspace/Facebook era came into effect.

Stumbleupon started off as a way to “stumble upon” fun and interesting websites submitted by it’s users. As the years have passed and the social aspect of media has come to the fore, users have been able to recommend links to each other, communicate via the site and of course has attracted a lot of self marketers.

I won’t lie to you, I submitted a few of my most popular articles to see if it would bring in a new user base who wanted to read my content, it was shameless self promotion. Did it work? Yes.

I have submitted the same sites to Digg and to Mixx, these sites heavily relying on people to find my article, take the time to read it and then decide whether it was worth a vote. These sites had driven no more than 30 unique hits to my website.

Below is a report from the last month from my Google Analytics:

To put this in perspective, I only submitted links to Stumbleupon this week. The 28 hits from Mixx are based on three submissions over a monthly period. The sheer number of people that have “stumbled” on this site have produced the one comment and a rise in 4 RSS subscribers, I can only say thankyou to the people who found my content interesting.

I will not submit every blog post on this site, I have only submitted a few pages that would genuinely interest a viewer. Stumbleupon to me is a fair and useful way of finding content, it brings back the element of chance that people can find my submissions and vote on them from their toolbar. I will continue to promote Mixx as I would rather promote good content than my own, but Stumbeupon does bring interesting sites to you….fast.

Mixx has become my daily place for links and news. As discussed before, I used to use Digg for this very purpose but became disillusioned with the users and the content of the popular stories. Mixx has some splendid features, the Groups idea being unique to social voting sites. I am also a fan of the “Karma” points which reward people for posting articles and also commenting, helping to build a sense of community.

There are some services I would like Mixx to offer, to help it grow and become more widespread among the masses (and feel free to tell me I’m an arse if some of these addons already exist!):

• An embedable widget for your website that allows readers to “Mixx Up” your article.
• The ability to see if your Mixx friends are online.
• The ability to see what your “Karma” points consists of, i.e. 20% comments, 80% submissions.
• An official Mixx wordpress plugin (which could also relate to the widget described above).
• A better way to flag a submission as a duplicate.
• A way to add a submission to another submission, the article’s linked in the submissions may reference the same source but have different stances for instance.
• Keeping on the widget theme, maybe introduce an applet you can embed in the sidebar of your blog or signature in a forum that shows your username, Mixx statistics and awards. I think it would encourage other people to check out the site.
• Add the local feature to the rest of the world, as a Brit, I submit a lot more Brit-centric articles so it would be good to have them tagged in the local section for myself and others to see.
• Perhaps, allowing all story, image and video submissions to be grouped together, it would make the front page/popular sections a lot less linear and more visually appealing (this is just my personal preference, perhaps the option to switch between this?)
• Possibly allow some way to give me an indication if one of my friends or followers has “Mixxed Up” what I am reading from a general overview (not if I have navigated into “View Details”.)

I would like to see it as more of an open forum, so if you do have any comments or suggestions, I will add them with due credit.

I enjoy Mixx more and more everyday, I’m just trying to do my bit to help it grow and be seen by a wider audience.

Youtube…..it’s everywhere and nowhere.

Vimeo however is what I am talking about. It has a unique design, it has great typography and in my opinion, the player is a lot nicer to look at. I am soon to be an owner of a camcorder and I am intent on using it. I shall be using this great site to upload my video’s, embed on this very site and enjoy.

Put simply:

Vimeo has been around since the last days of 2004.

We currently have over 7 billion users who have uploaded over 950 trillion videos.

I’m not going to make this another call to action (like the Mixx post) but I have felt the need to overhaul the services I have been using so that instead of using one that everyone else uses, I am using one that suits my needs and does it flawlessly. Mixx and Vimeo are examples of this!